September 4, 2008

Rasmussen polls. And 52% had a favorable opinion of Palin before her speech last night.

Eighty percent (80%) of Republicans say reporters are trying to hurt the GOP vice presidential nominee, and 28% of Democrats agree. Only six percent (6%) of Republicans – and even fewer Democrats (4%)– think the reporting is intended to help her. Most Democrats (57%) think the reporters are being unbiased, but just nine percent (9%) of Republicans concur.

Among unaffiliated voters, 49% say reporters are trying to hurt Palin, while 32% say their coverage is unbiased. Only five percent (5%) say reporters are trying to help her.

Hi, I voted yes for this but it's an ambigious area for me. I believe sometimes that even though we might detect the bias in stories and how the media portray events, we also may disbelieve how much bias there is! Effectively, the old chestnut "where there's smoke there must be fire" is being raised by the partisans in the media.

The thing that's so depressing about the huge MSM tilt to the left is that it so rarely backfires. It will in this case only because Palin is such an attractive person. But for the mostpart the MSM gets away with calling its propaganda reporting.

How many news outlets mentioned who authored Joe Biden's acceptance speech? Or Obama's? Compare that with how many mention, without even necessarily quoting the Democrats spewing the misogynistic party line, that Palin did not write the entirety of her speech.

"The Democrats are now saying Jesus Christ was a community organizer! They are comparing Obama to Jesus Christ!"

Actually, they're comparing Jesus to Obama.

Trouble for Jesus is Jesus was never a lawyer. He was a carpenter. But I'm sure Obama hired carpenters. To work on the house he bought from that slumlord dude. Of course, Jesus didn't need a Weatherman the way Obama did. He knew which way the wind would blow before it even blew. Up. The Pentagon.

Consider how many MSM articles in the last week have questioned her experience. They've questioned her experience! Are they aware of the resume of the current nominee of the Democratic Party for President?! If the media had given Barack Obama the kind of vetting Sarah Palin is getting, Hillary Clinton would have been the Democratic nominee and Obama would have been that guy who finished last in Iowa. If the media had given John Edwards the kind of vetting Sarah Palin is getting, he would have been that guy who dropped out before Iowa.

I really don't think there is as much malice as my fellow righties often portray. Journalists are people, too, and most of them have a worldview and a narrative that they don't stop and consider when making decisions about what to report. The problems for journalists are simple: (1) most of them have the same basic worldview, and (2) they are shallow.

Nevertheless, the Republicans have been really tremendous at taking political advantage of the situation. The metaphor is judo, and it absolutely works every time. The entire Palin arc thus far is a textbook example.

The idea that the media is only or even primarily profit-seeking or eyeball-seeking is problematic given the slew of lefty anti-war movies that have flopped. You'd think they'd have recognized that their financial interests lay elsewhere after the first dozen tanked.

What to make of the response to Palin's speech? What I see here and out there, basically, is compliments followed by a lot of silence.

Part of this, of course, is because she moved last night from an unknown quantity to a known one. Her unknownness was part of what was driving all the talk.

However, it's a lot more fun to continue to talk in sexual metaphor. America met this woman and had a quick, torrid dalliance. Now, after the collective orgasm, we realize that we will be dealing with her for the next couple months at least. That's how these things inevitably go.

Palin has a record, and if reporters don't report on it then who will?

We have three nights in prime time plus last weekend of the McCain campaign presenting Sarah Palin exactly according to her script, and only a partisan hack would argue that that is the only view of Sarah Palin that should be reported.

Nobody knew Palin last week. So a story that reflects positively on her is unabashedly true, but a story that reports facts that didn't show up in the McCain campaign memo is a liberal smear story (never mind that the facts are true, mind you.)

Eli -- You are skirting the issue, if not willfully misrepresenting it. The issue isn't reporting. It's what is reported.

I could go in any of a hundred directions here for an example. But let's stick to one about a vice president. Why didn't reporters report that John Edwards had virtually no experience? Why didn't it make a big deal that he had a sick wife to take care of?

The answer, as I have said, is that reporters have a worldview that programs them to think in a certain way. We all do. Some of us try to challenge our own worldview. But, in order to do that, you need to have some depth.

The problem with your second question is that sometimes, a skillful politician can throw it back in the media's face (like McCain did with Iseman), especially if he has a sympathetic audience. But there's no guarantee. Most of the time, media bias prevails. You have to be very powerful to stand against it.

There's nothing wrong with subjective news, so long as the press is truly free. Years and years ago (pre-WW II), newspapers were both more numerous and written more like blogs (image Ann as the editor and all of you as reporters). Newspapers have been in decline for well over a half century, slowly eclipsed by radio and then TV. All the handwringing over newspaper objectivity arose because certain do-gooders thought "the press" was literally falling into ever fewer hands.

So, any of you here (and I know there are plenty of other people like me lurking who don't comment) who don't support SARAH PALIN or whatever agenda put forth by the honorable SEVEN MACHOS of THE ALTHOUSE COMMENTS PAGE...sorry, you are hereby deemed insane.

Of course press bias works, the same way advertisements everybody hates work.In the primary, among republicans the press favored McCain (lord knows why, maybe cause he was nice to them) and Obama (new kid on the block, chance to throw stones at the presumed nominee). Without their help I don't think either one would have won their primaries and we'd be looking at a Clinton / Romney race. Of the field, the two that would probably do the best job as president though I'm unenthusiastic about Clinton (best of a weak field) and actively dislike Romney's whoring (but even those who disliked him admitted he was a capable executive).

Yes, you are a fine judge of leftist commentary, so long as you can tweak it to fit into whatever your world view is. Sorry, not everyone can live up to your elite standards. Now go take that poll again and make sure it hits 99.9% YES. (All caps just for you.)

Whether the Press was trying to hurt her or not, the media frenzy of just 5 days ginned up the interest in Palin to a point where the ratings for her speech last night were phenominal. A different kind of backfire.

From CBS: "According to Nielsen, 37.2 million people watched the speech on six networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX News Channel, and MSNBC). That is just 1.1 million less than watched Obama's speech last Thursday night. Compare that to the estimated 24 million who watched Democratic VP nominee Joe Biden's speech last Wednesday night. You can also compare that to the about 34 million who watched the opening of the Beijing Olympics last month, 32 million who watched this year's Oscars and 31.7 million who watched last spring's American Idol finale."

Her real capability is still unknown, except to say that she can deliver a canned speech written by others and displayed on an irritable teleprompter. Not bad in itself, and not easy, but not indicative of her ability to use logic, or common sense. Of course, this blog is aimed right into the G3 audience in the K'ville area, so one would expect lots pro Palin spin.

Reporters long for the return of One Party Rule. Then they can be like Pravda again, telling the Approved Messages, and little Sarah can return to Siberia, uh, that meaningless Alaskan trailer park whence she came.

fls said...Journalists should be equal opportunity skeptics, so the poll questions should reflect that. "Do you think reporters are trying/have tried to hurt Obama?" should be added to the poll.

You are absolutely correct.

rhhardin said...It's not a bias. It's a business.

Yes and no. I think that they are always looking for a scandal to report, and if they found one for either canidate, they would report it.

However, I think the bias affects what they consider to be a scandal. Anything that can be interpreted more than one way is more likely to be viewed as a non-issue for a Democrat and evidence of a scandal for a Republican

--cosmopolitan "questions" and their uppity "facts" and all that elitist "investigating."

Facts like who is Reverend Wright and does Baracky share his hatred for Amerikkkka? Does Baracky think that the CIA invented AIDS to kill black people?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_Wright#Political_controversy

Facts like who is Bill Ayers and does Baracky share his unrepentant contempt for Amerikkka? Like how did Ayers and Baracky piss away 150 million dollars that should have gone to improve education in Chicago in the Annennburg project? Like what part of Ayers educational philosophy and activism Baracky agrees with?

Like why Obama isn't taking care of his half brother George? He thinks Amerikka is a bad country because "I think America's greatest moral failure in my lifetime has been that we still don't abide by that basic precept in Matthew" Where is his leadership as a Senator? What are his charitable efforts?

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/22/bts.obama.brother/index.html

Like why is Baracky's fund raising effort so lax that he is taking money from Palestians? What other foreigners are contributing to Obama?

I'd like to be paid an elitist salary and do the lazy job of chasing down a pregnant 17 year old rather than who is this mysterious, possibly dangerous candidate from the Democrats?

Is there any chance whatsoever that the Left will eventually send their first stringers to comment here? Or even their third stringers? I mean some of these Lefty commenters should have their butts full of splinters they're so far down on the team roster.

Recycling tired talking points is just about as worthless as commenting gets, and there sure are a lot of tired Lefty talking points being recycled here.

OH, and fls, that question about whether the press has been trying to help or hurt Obama has been asked periodically. Probably you didn't notice because it's usually about 40% say help and about 5% say hurt.

Obama's confidence is called "commanding presence" while Palin's confidence--more impressive for being backed by actual executive experience--is called her "trying to be comfortable" when talking about foreign policy.

It's not the stories, the slander, the bullshit, and the double-standards that will kill the Republican ticket. It's the sneaky sapwork of word-choice that, consistently and subconsciously, tells the American people that these two great people are in fact a sham.

to your list you might add that her 37 million was across 6 networks, while his was from 10 including both Spanish networks and the black one as well (BET). If she had had 10 network covergae she might have beaten him.. a VP

The press have screwed the pooch here. their collective professional reputation is on the line and appears to have taken a permanent hit. Unless the "affair" story pans out, they have taken a permanent hit from middle America

I can't believe that the leftards are still going on about the chief executive of a state not spending her time writing speeches. We all know that Obama, as a Senator, has all the time in the world to pen his airy thoughts.

And for the Zero who picked Joe "The Plagerist" Biden as his veep to complain about not writing your own speeches,,, well, as Bart Simpson said, "The ironing is delicious!"

It's an opinion columnist I'm thinking of so I suppose she's supposed to have an opinion, but there sure does seem to be a lot of it out there just now as a whole bunch of people who like to think they know more than the rest of us are going, "Sarah, who?"

So... the regular article in the paper was quite positive and talked about how long people cheered and how they reacted to Palin's speech... made a point of pointing out that her daughter is pregnant and the boyfriend was on the stage with them, which might have been "negative" in the reporting but I thought was a good move on the part of the campaign.

So this opinion peice... It starts out, Sarah Palin makes me think that I could be Vice President... and I'm thinking, cool, she's so right. Isn't that the essence of Americana? Anyone can grow up to be President? Anyone at all? It seemed like the article would be about this fabulously egalitarian notion, and fabulously feminist notion... we can Think Big for our selves.

And it was a lie... because what the opinion column was was a sarcastic dig at *anyone*, not just Sarah Palin, that had dreams too big for her britches. Oh, *I* have a journalism degree, this woman crowed. Forget anything like studying Law or Economics or whatever, all those things that make people better than you or I am. And while I agree that anyone trying to argue that the demands of motherhood make a person capable of running a country is marginally brain-dead, it's hardly a *counter* indication of ability!

I don't know how effective this particular article will be, though, in the author's blatant attempt to scorn Sarah Palin. We *should* feel that we can aspire to high office no matter our origins (or lack of Ivy League creds) and if many people and particularly many *women* read the same article and felt that swell of belief in their own ability and efficacy that I did only to have it turn to scorn and derision... well... the intended purpose of the article may very well back-fire.

That old free market, invisible hand thing is tanking the MSM--they will be an anachronism in ten years. While very messy at times, the blogosphere smoked out most of the bullshit and found facts journalists could or did not want to find. Newspapers, I would submit, do NOT have any significant effect on choices voters make.

Synova--It's funny, but I have the opposite reaction to seeing Palin nominated. I can't imagine being Veep. It's not a matter of "anyone can be" but "how driven do you have to be to put that effort in to get that job"?

This press is a business thing is worth examining. Certainly in terms of corporate entity, governance, and management structure TV (stations? producers? broadcasters? ABC, NBC and CBS) are businesses. As are the major cable producers -- CNN, CNBC, and FOX, and the major newspapers -- NYT, Chicago Tribune, etc. I'm not quite sure what the structures of AP and Reuters are.

However, as a business, you don't win customers by alienating between 30 and 60% of your market through promulgating one-sided viewpoints.

Yet, there is an undeniable bias towards a liberal point of view in most of the above news and reporting producers. Part of it might be the composition of the newsroom. Journalism may not be the natural environ for Republican leaning people, or maybe the journalism vetting process prefers liberal journalists getting the key jobs.

However, if it were truly a business, then such bias would be consciously managed out, to appeal to as many of the possible market as possible. Such is basic marketing. It is not like they want to focus just on liberals as their markets, because there is no value in winning liberals at the expanse of conservatives. It’s not like they are going to get more money from liberals by excluding conservatives, the price of the paper is the price of the paper, they don't charge more because of some liberal orgasm over the confirmation of worldview found.

The business model of these producers, TV, Cable, and newspapers -- is not about papers sold or viewers watching, it’s about securing advertising revenue. Advertising rates are on viewership or readership. Again, why would these purported businesses alienate 30 to 60% of their available market by putting out liberal biased news and opinion? Their readership or viewership will decline and so too their advertising revenues.

This is shown in NYT, CBS, ABC, and NBC revenues and revenue trends. Notably: not so much Wall Street Journal, Fox, or talk radio.

If these were really businesses -- they would know not to alienate their market; they would notice the decline in advertising revenues and seek correction; and they would observe their competitors not suffering the same fates and find out why.

The "press is a business" theory doesn't hold - logically or observably.

Blake, It wasn't "Oh, I want to be VP, too!" just more of a general feeling that what I *do* want to do is possible.

Of course, I understand, too, the feeling that Sarah Palin would be way over her head as President, which is upsetting only until I try to imagine someone else as President. I think that if she *had* to do it (and soon-ish) that she's stubborn enough, driven enough, and has native common sense enough not to panic and dither. Which puts her right up there on the top, frankly, of who could actually do that job.

A guy at work said today that picking a presidential candidate seems to him to be like going to a 6th grade health class to chose a brain surgeon. No matter who you pick, you've got a 6th grade health class student.

"People. Relax. If the press was so convincing, why Reagan? Why any Bushes? Why 1994? Why Nixon for that matter?"

That's one way to look at it. The other way is to wonder why Clinton, why did it take until 1994, why do the Democrats even have a (bare) majority in the Senate? Once you add Evan Thomas' 15 point press bias (which I think is an overestimate but makes the point) that might explain a lot and without it the course of the country might have been much different. And as to Nixon, perhaps his reelection was a backlash in action, or at least a demonstration of the press leading the Democrats down the garden path in thinking that George McGovern represented even an approximation of the mainstream of the country. But I do agree that the press's ability to warp election results in their favor will become increasingly difficult for them in the coming years.

As an aside, in terms of the current balance in the Senate, it always amuses me that some people try to claim that 2006 was such a pivotal, realigning election when, in fact, the Democrats have the barest minimum of a Senate majority. And that's after all the claims of an "unpopular war", a president with low approval numbers and the historical fact that a second term midterm election almost always swings to the opposition party. If that's the best the Democrats can do with the press on their side, to boot, it does make you wonder about their claims to really represent the mainstream of the country.

I also laughed at the claims that some made (I remember one blog commenter especially) after the 2006 election that it was the most important election in 40 years. (Gore Vidal actually claimed before the election that it was the most important in his lifetime.) That was just patently absurd. All you had to do was go back two years to 2004 when Bush defeated Kerry to find an election with more importance. The arrival of Ms. Pelosi in 2006 as Speaker didn't exactly change a whole lot of things, as she assumed it would. If Kerry had come into office in 2004, everything would have been different.

I think a more interesting question is why do so many paid journalists lean left? I suspect the answer has to do with Watergate, timing, and generational dynamics.

When I was going through the UW-Madison as an undergrad, Annie Laurie Gaylor was running one of two student newspapers. She personified a rather extreme left version of the J-school ethics. Those people grew up and became the MSM (well not her actually- shes still busy fighting "god" in her Freedom from religion foundation).

The blogosphere offers to remake news in a different image, at least until the Messiah returns- then all bets are off (Fairness Doctrine).

Probably too late, as I hope most of the sliming is over, but wouldn't it be interesting for the McCain site to set up a donation account geared to media spin. For example, everytime we see the local media, as mine did, talk about Palin under investigation for trying to get an ex-BIL fired without any context, we go donate $10 to McCain. Everytime the media talks about the mother of a special needs baby not able to be a fully engaged VP we go donate $20.... You get the picture. Those $10s and $20s could add up to real money.

I think it probably (left leaning journalists) has something to do with the job itself. Teachers probably are liberal too, or tend that way. University professors certainly are.

Other professions seem to lean the other way and it's definitely not a matter of what takes more smarts.

If a person thinks about it, both teaching and journalism tends toward the "holy calling" category. Other people can chose a job they like and do it for the paycheck but teachers are supposed to be lauded for the nobility of it all. Journalists are a little the same, I think. And I think that they do think rather highly of themselves as Speakers of Truth to Power and their near Priest-like responsibilities when it comes to sources or confessions. Look at what has been said about loyalties and nationalities and the need for a journalist to rise above all of those things... they don't keep journals... they arbitrate the content of the public knowledge base. They don't even *report*.

It's a calling.

And I do think it's quite likely that those who lean liberal are likely to be drawn toward this sort of career.

While others are drawn toward engineering or sciences or business or military service.

It's because most journalists don't want to report the news. They want to influence it.

Liberals tend to be people who are not physically competent. They don't have mechanical skills. They can't build things with their hands. If stranded on a desert island they would starve. This is why they are always stressing the notion that we are our brother's keeper. They know unless someone else (society) takes care of them they'll never make it on their own.

Never mind that her running mate has long sought—and secured—the good opinion of Washington reporters and commentators. If Palin had a prayer of winning the blessings of such conservatives as Krauthammer and Frum, let alone political reporters, she'd be slathering them with flattery.

Folks were so much better trained in the 1970's and 80's. The breakdown of socialism in the US has taken its toll on the discipline required for good propaganda. Here are a few rules that my Ministry of Propaganda ginned up for combating Thatcher:

1) Act early, Palin must be defined before the country gets to know her (I hope it is not too late);2) Whenever possible use women in the attacking role, remember that Hilary/Lazio debate;3) Don't explicitly state that she should stay home with her family, instead express condolences that she has such a trial at home;4) Emphasize the feminine character, our studies show that men and women still look to males as protectors;5) While performing item 4 above work to show that she is the 'pretty face' of a dire ideology and that she must be controlled by the men of that group; and6)Imply that she is not truly a woman if she does not share the feminine ideological perspective.

Get it together people you just don't understand the damage Palin will do if elected. The forces of international socialism have spent the last 40 years establishing a gender differential, all this will be lost if Palin succeeds.